History Series / SecondsFromDisaster

** "Plane Crash in the Potomac" has a bystander in the crowd on the bridge over the river dive into the freezing cold waters to save a terribly injured woman from drowning after she managed to escape the plane crash but was unable to hold onto a dangled life preserver from an overhead rescue helicopter.

** Ryūjirō Takami, just moments before his train derailed at Amagasaki Station. It is believed that this was actually part of a chain of similar reactions; fearing the harsh retraining program his company would give him for a chain of mistakes he had made along the way, unease developed into concern, which gave way to anxiety after he overran a red signal, causing the train to automatically brake to a stop, then sheer terror after he overshot the platform at Itami Station and had to reverse back, as he realised there was nothing he could do to avoid punishment. Blinded by the fear of what he would surely endure upon returning to the office, he was rendered incapable of operating the train safely, to the point that in the moments before the derailment he only used the service brake to try to slow the train down (rather than the emergency brake, which while it wouldn't have stopped the accident, may well have reduced the speed at which the train left the line), as using the emergency brake came with its own strict penalties. In any case, Takami’s final moments were likely spent in abject horror, realising that he had doomed both himself and his train to destruction. Mercifully, death came swiftly, as he was killed instantly when his cab slammed into the apartment building after the train came off the wheels.

** "New York Air Crash/Plane Crash In Queens": First Officer Stan Molin encountered wake turbulence from a different plane which had taken off earlier and countered it by doing exactly what he was trained to do. Unfortunately, what he had been trained to do was to mash the rudders so hard that he ripped off the vertical stabilizer and crashed the plane.

* NiceJobFixingItVillain: The Pearl Harbor attack is seen as a ''Japanese'' disaster, rather than an American one. Among other reasons, the Japanese airmen missed hitting important facilities such as dry docks, sub pens, and fuel storage tanks near the harbor, opting instead to attack the American battleships docked at Battleship Row. Worse, their intended primary targets, the American aircraft carriers, were not in the harbor at the time of the attack. Also overlaps with AwakeningTheSleepingGiant, considering what happens to the carriers and men that partook in the attack only months later.

* AwakeningTheSleepingGiant: One episode focuses on the Attack on Pearl Harbor, and how the Japanese made it a disaster... for themselves.

* {{Retirony}}: Edward Smith was to make one last trip across the Atlantic as ship's captain before retiring. Unfortunately he was to captain the doomed ''Titanic''.

** At one point in the episode "King's Cross Fire" a adverstisement for ''WesternAnimation/IceAge'' can be seen in the background. The episode takes place during 1987, 15 years before the film was released.

* AtomicHate:
** "Nagasaki - The Forgotten Bomb" is about the [[UsefulNotes/AtomicBombingsOfHiroshimaAndNagasaki US nuclear attack]] on Nagasaki, Japan in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. The episode makes particular emphasis on the fact that most of the people in the city were trying to continue their lives, despite hearing of the destruction of Hiroshima a few days earlier. To make matters worse, [[WouldHurtAChild the bomb fell at the same time as a group of children got to work building firebreaks in anticipation of a major firebombing.]]

** "Fukushima": Damage from a 9.0 earthquake and a tsunami, loss of power related to it, and a build-up of hydrogen leads to a meltdown and explosions that damage the containment of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan, leading to the second worst peacetime nuclear disaster of human history-one that's still ongoing today.

** "Fukushima": Damage from a 9.0 earthquake and a tsunami, loss of power related to it, and a build-up of hydrogen leads to a meltdown and explosions that damage the containment of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan, leading to the second worst peacetime nuclear disaster of human history-one that's [[ParanoiaFuel still ongoing today]].

** “Plane Crash in Queens/New York Air Crash”: The first officer had been incorrectly trained to use alternating aggressive rudder inputs to recover from wake turbulence, which he did in response to the turbulence caused by the JAL flight in front. Had he not done this, American Airlines Flight 587 would have leveled out on it’s own. Instead, his aggressive use of the rudder caused the vertical stabilizer to break off, leading to the plane losing complete control.

** The MV ''Dona Paz'' collides with a tanker and sinks in the Philippine Sea, in a disaster several times the magnitude of the ''Titanic''. Only 24 people survive out of over 4,000.

** Ryūjirō Takami, just moments before his train derailed at Amagasaki Station. It is believed that this was actually part of a chain of similar reactions; fearing the harsh retraining program his company would give him for a chain of mistakes he had made along the way, concern gave way to anxiety, then sheer terror as he realised there was nothing he could do to avoid his fate, to the point that he only used the service brake to try to slow the train down (rather than the emergency brake, which while it wouldn't have stopped the derailment, may well have reduced the speed at which the train left the line), as using the emergency brake came with its own strict penalties.

* AnachronismStew: In the "Chicago Air Crash" episode, set in 1979, on some of the scenes on the escalator, you can see an LCD display showing the flight times. They were not widely used until the late 2000s.

** "Fire in the Cockpit": Overheating from the Swissair Flight 111's inflight entertainment system causes a spark to break out in the plane's wiring just above the cockpit, which causes metallized mylar placed there to ignite, creating a blaze. The pilots then turn off the air conditioning, which causes the blaze to become an inferno and consume the cockpit. The fire then burns out all of the plane's important wiring, including the autopilot and instrument panels. Captain Zimmerman then attempts to fight the fire, ultimately dying by smoke inhalation. This leaves First Officer Louvre to pilot the plane alone, with no instruments to help him, and zero visibility in the night sky. The plane ultimately crashes into the water at 345mph, killing all 229 passengers and crew.

* KillItWithFire: Swissair Flight 111 ends up going down when an electrical fire breaks out in the cockpit, frying all necessary electronics needed to fly the plane. Said inferno also kills the plane's Captain through smoke inhalation, while he attempted to contain the blaze.

** “Plane Crash in Queens/New York Air Crash”: The first officer had been incorrectly trained to use alternating aggressive rudder inputs to recover from wake turbulence, which he did in response to the turbulence caused by the JAL flight in front. Had he not done this, American Airlines Flight 587 would have levelled out on it’s own. Instead, his aggressive use of the rudder caused the vertical stabilizer to break off, leading to the plane losing complete control.

** "Fire in the Cockpit": Overheating from the plane's inflight entertainment system causes a spark to break out in the plane's wiring just above the cockpit, which causes metallized mylar placed there to ignite, creating a blaze. The pilots then turn off the air conditioning, which causes the blaze to become an inferno and consume the cockpit. The fire then burns out all of the plane's important wiring, including the autopilot and instrument panels. Captain Zimmerman then attempts to fight the fire, ultimately dying by smoke inhalation. This leaves First Officer Louvre to pilot the plane alone, with no instruments to help him, and zero visibility in the night sky. The plane ultimately crashes into the water at 345mph, killing all 229 passengers and crew.

** Ryūjirō Takami, just moments before his train derails in Amagasaki.

** "Comet Air Crash/Crash of the Comet": The decision to secure a window with rivets instead of glue (as originally designed) left a microscopic manufacturing defect in the fuselage of ''BOAC Flight 781''. Over time, the defect grew into a fatigue crack. The fatigue crack then failed, leading to ExplosiveDecompression, causing [[TitleDrop the crash of the Comet]]. The crash crippled the promised rise of British Aviation company ''de Havilland'', allowing two companies, '''Boeing''' and '''[=McDonnell=] Douglas''' to leave them in the dust forever. Also, the subsequent inquiry into the crash resulted in unprecedented investigative techniques (such as ''wreckage reassembly'') being developed; techniques that form the cornerstone of accident investigations to this day.

** "[[UsefulNotes/RMSTitanic Titanic]]/Sinking of the Titanic": The wireless operator for the SS ''Californian'' tried to warn nearby ships of icebergs in the area. Unfortunately, he didn't properly announce himself, and was using much less sensitive equipment than the ''Titanic'', so he was told by the ''Titanic's'' operator to get off the frequency. He went to bed after that, and missed the ''Titanic's'' SOS signal.

* AdultFear:
** Nearly every episode interviews at least one person who lost a relative or loved one in the disaster.
** "Amsterdam Air Crash/Schiphol Plane Crash/Plane Crash in the Suburbs": Two parents leave their children home alone to visit some friends a few blocks away. Minutes later, a jumbo jet crashes directly into their apartment.